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Armenia’s new provocation – an attempt to derail talks on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

The latest news has been a message that the Azerbaijani armed forces shot down an Armenian military helicopter, which violated Azerbaijan's airspace at the contact line between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Mi-24 helicopter was shot down during its attack on the positions of the Azerbaijani army, the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan said.

The Armenian armed forces' provocations are taking place amid negotiations on the Armenian-Azerbaijani territorial dispute that have been renewed after a long period of acute tension.

The Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents' meetings followed the aggravation of the situation on the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops' contact line last summer, but only after they were initiated by the leaders of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

After such a difficult resumption of negotiations and the repeated calls of the world leaders to comply with ceasefire, Armenia aggravates the situation by deciding to hold drills in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. However, this time and unfortunately, the international community didn't give a timely response to such an obvious provocation from Yerevan, which continues to openly pursues a policy of occupation of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territories.

Moreover, the Armenian troops didn't shun crossing the border of the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh and attack the positions of Azerbaijani military. And this means that Yerevan again is doing everything to destroy the negotiation process around Nagorno-Karabakh - the negotiation process, which was so hard to establish.

Armenia's purpose is obvious. The results of the negotiations are important not only for Azerbaijan, but also for the international mediators.

The lack of progress in the negotiations could end up with another military conflict in such a strategically important region as South Caucasus, and it is not in the interest of the West or Russia for many geopolitical and economic reasons.

However, among all participants of the negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, only Armenia is satisfied with the status quo under which the unrecognized breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region is de-facto governed by Armenia.

And in order to gain time and continue the occupation of territories, Armenia doesn't mind sacrificing one military helicopter and lives of several of its citizens.

All things considered the question remains: How long will the international community continue to turn a blind eye to such apparent provocations of Armenia aimed at destabilizing the situation in the region and such overt attempts of this country to prevent the mediators from promoting the peace process?

The killing of how many people, from both sides, will prompt the international community to intervene and react to the exercises in the breakaway region, holding of elections there, as well as serving of Armenian soldiers in the army of separatists?